Seventy-three seconds
into the mission, the Challenger exploded and fell into the sea. On April
29, 1986 the identified remains that had been located were turned over
to their families for burial. However, there were number of unidentified
remains. These remains were buried at Arlington National Cemetery on May
20, 1986, beneath the Memorial that appears below. Two of the crewmembers,
Scobee
and Smith, were buried in Arlington National
Cemetery as well.

The Challenger Memorial, pictured after restoration
workPhoto
Courtesy of Gordon Ponsford,
February 2003

President
Reagan's Speech on The Challenger Disaster

Ronald Reagan -- Oval Office of the White
House, January 28, 1986

Nineteen years ago,
almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the
ground. But, we've never lost an astronaut in flight; we've never had a
tragedy like this. And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took for
the crew of the shuttle; but they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of
the dangers, but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn
seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair,
Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their
loss as a nation together.

For the families
of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy.
But we feel the loss, and we're thinking about you so very much. Your loved
ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special
spirit that says, 'Give me a challenge and I'll meet it with joy.' They
had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished
to serve, and they did. They served all of us.

We've grown used
to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for twenty-five
years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown
used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we've only just begun.
We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.

And I want to say
something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage
of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes
painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration
and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons.
The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.
The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue
to follow them...

There's a coincidence
today. On this day 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake
died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers
were the oceans, and a historian later said, 'He lived by the sea, died
on it, and was buried in it.' Well, today we can say of the Challenger
crew: Their dedication was, like Drake's, complete.

The crew of the space
shuttle Challenger honoured us by the manner in which they lived their
lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning,
as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly
bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'

The
Shuttle Explodes6
IN CREW AND HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHERARE
KILLED 74 SECONDS AFTER LIFTOFF

Thousands
Watch Rain of DebrisBy
William J. BroadSpecial
to The New York Times

Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Jan. 28, 1986 -- The space shuttle Challenger exploded in a ball
of fire shortly after it left the launching pad today, and all seven astronauts
on board were lost.

The worst accident
in the history of the American space program, it was witnessed bythousands of spectators
who watched in wonder, then horror, as the ship blew apart high in the
air.

Flaming debris rained
down on the Atlantic Ocean for an hour after the explosion, which occurred
just after 11:39 A. M. It kept rescue teams from reaching the area where
the craft would have fallen into the sea, about 18 miles offshore.

It seemed impossible
that anyone could have lived through the terrific explosion 10 miles in
the sky, and officials said this afternoon that there was no evidence to
indicate that the five men and two women aboard had survived.

No Ideas Yet as to
Cause

There were no clues
to the cause of the accident. The space agency offered no immediate explanations,
and said it was suspending all shuttle flights indefinitely while it conducted
an inquiry. Officials discounted speculation that cold weather at Cape
Canaveral or an accident several days ago that slightly damaged insulation
on the external fuel tank might have been a factor.

Americans who had
grown used to the idea of men and women soaring into space reacted with
shock to the disaster, the first time United States astronauts had died
in flight. President Reagan canceled the State of the Union Message that
had been scheduled for tonight, expressing sympathy for the families of
the crew but vowing that the nation's exploration of space would continue.

Mrs. McAuliffe, a
high-school teacher from Concord, New Hampshire, was to havebeen the first ordinary
citizen in space.

After a Minute, Fire
and Smoke The Challenger lifted off flawlessly this morning, afterthree days of delays,
for what was to have been the 25th mission of the reusable shuttle fleet
that was intended to make space travel commonplace. The ship rose for about
a minute on a column of smoke and fire from its five engines.

Suddenly, without
warning, it erupted in a ball of flame.

The shuttle was about
10 miles above the earth, in the critical seconds when the two solid-fuel
rocket boosters are firing as well as the shuttle's main engines. There
was some discrepancy about the exact time of the blast: The National Aeronautics
and Space Administration said they lost radio contact with the craft 74
seconds into the flight, plus or minus five seconds.

Two large white streamers
raced away from the blast, followed by a rain of debris that etched white
contrails in the cloudless sky and then slowly headed toward the cold waters
of the nearby Atlantic.

The eerie beauty
of the orange fireball and billowing white trails against the blue confused
many onlookers, many of whom did not at first seem aware that the aerial
display was a sign that something had gone terribly wrong.

There were few sobs,
moans or shouts among the thousands of tourists, reporters, and space agency
officials gathered on an unusually cold Florida day to celebrate the liftoff,
just a stunned silence as they began to realize that the Challenger had
vanished.

Among the people
watching were Mrs. McAuliffe's two children, her husband and her parents
and hundreds of students, teachers and friends from Concord.

"Things started flying
around and spinning around and I heard some oh's and ah's, and at that
moment I knew something was wrong," said Brian Ballard, the editor of The
Crimson Review at Concord High School.

"I felt sick to my
stomach. I still feel sick to my stomach."

Ships Searching the
Area

At an outdoor news
conference held here this afternoon, Jesse W. Moore, the head of the shuttle
program at NASA, said: "I regret to report that, based on very preliminarysearches of the
ocean where the Challenger impacted this morning, these searches have not
revealed any evidence that the crew of the Challenger survived." Behind
him, in the distance, the American flag waved at half-staff.

Coast Guard ships
were in the area of impact tonight and planned to stay all night, with
airplanes set to comb the area at first light for debris that could provide
the clues to the catastrophe. Some material from the shattered craft was
reported to be washing ashore on Florida beaches tonight, mostly the small
heat-shielding tiles that protect the shuttle as it passes through the
earth's atmosphere.

Films of the explosion
showed a parachute drifting toward the sea, apparently one that would have
lowered one of the huge reusable booster rockets after its fuel was spent.

Pending an investigation,
Mr. Moore said at the news conference this afternoon, hardware, photographs,
computer tapes, ground support equipment and notes taken by members of
the launching team would be impounded.

The three days of
delays and a tight annual launching schedule did not force a premature
launching, Mr. Moore said in answer to a reporter's question.

'Flight Safety a
Top Priority'

"There was no pressure
to get this particular launch up," he said. "We have always maintained
that flight safety was a top priority in the program."

Several hours after
the accident, Mr. Moore announced the appointment of an interim review
team, assigned to preserve and identify flight data from the mission, pending
the appointment of a formal investigating committee.

The members of the
interim panel are Richard G. Smith, the director of the Kennedy Space Center;
Arnold Aldridge, the manager of the National Space Transportation System,
Johnson Space Center; William Lucas, director of the Marshall Space Flight
Center; Walt Williams, a NASA consultant, and James C. Harrington, the
director of Spacelab, who will serve as executive secretary.

A NASA spokesman
said a formal panel could be appointed as soon as Wednesday by Dr. William
R. Graham, the director of the space agency.

All American manned
space launchings were stopped for more than a year and a half after the
worst previous American space accident, in January 1967, when three astronauts
were killed in a fire in an Apollo capsule on the launching pad.

'Hope We Go Today'

This year's schedule
was to have been the most ambitious in the history of the shuttle program,
with 15 flights planned. For the Challenger, the workhorse of the nation's
shuttle fleet, this was to have been the 10th mission.

Today's launching
had been delayed three times in three days by bad weather. The Challenger
was to have launched two satellites and Mrs. McAullife was to have broadcast
two lessons from space to millions of students around the country.

All day long, well
after the explosion, the large mission clocks scattered about the Kennedy
Space Center continued to run ticking off the minutes and seconds of a
flight that had long ago ended.

Long before liftoff
this morning, skies over the Kennedy Space Center were clear and cold,
reporters and tourists shivering in leather gloves, knit hats and down
coats as temperatures hovered in the low 20's.

Icicles formed as
ground equipment sprayed water on the launching pad, a precaution against
fire.

At 9:07 A. M., after
the astronauts were seated in the shuttle, wearing gloves because the interior
was so cold, ground controllers broke into a round of applause as the shuttle's
door, whose handle caused problems yesterday, which was closed.

"Good morning, Christa,
hope we go today," said ground control as the New Hampshire school teacher
settled into the spaceplane.

"Good morning," she
replied, "I hope so, too." Those are her last known words.

The liftoff, originally
scheduled for a 9:38 A. M., was delayed two hours by problems on the ground
caused first by a failed fire-protection device and then by ice on the
shuttle's ground support structure.

The launching was
the first from pad 39-B, which had recently undergone a $150 million overhaul.
It had last been used for a manned launching in the 1970's.

Just before liftoff,
Challenger's external fuel tank held 500,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen
and oxygen, which are kept separate because they are highly volatile when
mixed. The fuel is used in the shuttle's three main engines.

At 11:38 A. M. the
shuttle rose gracefully off the launching pad, heading in to the sky. The
shuttle's main engines, after being cut back slightly just after liftoff,
a normal procedure, were pushed ahead to full power as the shuttle approached
maximum dynamic pressure when it broke through the sound barrier.

"Challenger, go with
throttle up," said James D. Wetherbee of mission control in Houston about
11:39 A. M.

"Roger," replied
the commander, Mr. Scobee, "go with throttle up."

Those were the last
words to be heard on the ground from the winged spaceplane and her crew
of seven.

As the explosion
occurred, Stephen A. Nesbitt of Mission Control in Houston, apparently
looking at his notes and not the explosion on his television monitor, noted
that the shuttle's velocity was "2,900 feet per second, altitude 9 nautical
miles, downrange distance 7 nautical miles." That is a speed of about 1,977
miles an hour, a height of about 10 statute miles and a distance down range
of about 8 miles.

The first official
word of the disaster came from Mr. Nesbitt of Mission Control, who reported,
"a major malfunction." He added that communications with the ship had failed
1 minute 14 seconds into the flight.

"We have no downlink,"
he said, referring to communications from the Challenger. "We have a report
from the flight dynamics officer that the vehicle has exploded."

His voice cracked.
"The flight director confirms that," he continued. "We're checking with
the recovery forces to see what can be done at this point."

Tapes Showed Small
Fire

In the sky above
the Kennedy Space Center, the shuttle's two solid-fuel rocket boosters
sailed into the distance.

The explosion, later
viewed in slow-motion televised replays taken by cameras equipped with
telescopic lenses, showed what appeared to be the start of a small fire
at the base of the huge external fuel tank, followed by the quick separation
of the solid rockets. A huge fireball then engulfed the shuttle as the
external tank exploded.

At the news conference,
Mr. Moore would not speculate on the cause of the disaster.

The estimated pint
of impact for debris was 18 to 20 miles off the Florida coast, according
to space agency officials.

"The search and rescue
teams were delayed getting into the area because of debris continuing to
fall from very high altitudes, for almost an hour after ascent," said Mr.
Nesbitt of Mission Control in Houston.

Speaking at 1 P.
M. in Florida, Lieut. Col. Robert W. Nicholson Jr., a spokesman for the
rescue operation, which is run by the Defense Department, said range safety
radars near the Kennedy Space Center detected debris falling for nearly
an hour after theexplosion. "Anything
that went into the area would have been endangered," hesaid in an interview.

In addition, the
explosion of the huge fuel supply would have created a cloud of toxic vapors.
NASA officials said tonight that the hazardous gases presented no danger
to land, but the Coast Guard was advising boats and ships to avoid the
area.

Not a Good Ditcher

In an interview last
year, Tommy Holloway, the chief of the flight director office at the Johnson
Space Center in Houston, talked about the possibility of a shuttle crash
at sea.

"This airplane is
not a good ditcher," he said: "It will float O.K. if it doesn't break apart,
and we have hatches we can blow off the top. But the orbiter lands fast,
at 190 knots. You come in and stop in 100 yards or so. You decelerate like
gangbusters, and anything in the payload bay comes forward. We don't expect
a very good day if it comes to that."

On board Challenger
was the world's privately owned communication satellite, the $100 million
Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, which with its rocket boosters weighed
37,636 pounds.

This morning, water
froze on the shuttle service structure, used for fire fighting equipment
and for emergency showers that technicians would use if they were exposed
to fuel. The takeoff was delayed because space agency officials feared
that during the first critical seconds of launching, icicles might fly
off the service structure and damage the delicate heat-resistant tiles
on the shuttle, which are crucial for the vehicle's re-entry through the
earth's atmosphere.

The search for wreckage
of the Challenger crew cabin has been completed. A team of engineers
and scientists has analyzed the wreckage and all other available evidence
in an attempt to determine the cause of death of the Challenger crew.
This letter is to report to you on the results of this effort.

The findings are
inconclusive. The impact of the crew compartment with the ocean surface
was so violent that evidence of damage occurring in the seconds which followed
the explosion was masked. Our final conclusions are:

--the cause of death
of the Challenger astronauts cannot be positively determined;

--the forces to which
the crew were exposed during Orbiter breakup were probably not sufficient
to cause death or serious injury; and

--the crew possibly,
but not certainly, lost consciousness in the seconds following Orbiter
breakup due to in-flight loss of crew module pressure.

Our inspection and
analyses revealed certain facts which support the above conclusions, and
these are related below:

The forces on the
Orbiter at breakup were probably too low to cause death or serious injury
to the crew but were sufficient to separate the crew compartment from the
forward fuselage, cargo bay, nose cone, and forward reaction control compartment.
The forces applied to the Orbiter to cause such destruction clearlyexceed its design
limits.

The data available
to estimate the magnitude and direction of these forces included ground
photographs and measurements fromonboard accelerometers,
which were lost two-tenths of a second after vehicle breakup.

Two independent assessments
of these data produced very similar estimates. The largest acceleration
pulse occurred as the Orbiter forward fuselage separated and was rapidly
pushed away from the external tank. It then pitched nose-down and
was decelerated rapidly by aerodynamic forces. There areuncertainties in
our analysis; the actual breakup is not visible on photographs because
the Orbiter was hidden by the gaseous cloud surrounding the external tank.
The range of most probable maximum accelerations is from 12 to 20 G's in
the vertical axis. These accelerations were quite brief. In two seconds,
they werebelow four G's;
in less than ten seconds, the crew compartment was essentially in free
fall. Medical analysis indicates that these accelerations are survivable,
and that the probability of major injury to crew members is low.

After vehicle breakup,
the crew compartment continued its upward trajectory, peaking at an altitude
of 65,000 feet approximately 25 seconds after breakup. It then descended
striking the ocean surface about two minutes and forty-five seconds after
breakup at a velocity of about 207 miles per hour. The forces imposed
bythis impact approximated
200 G's, far in excess of the structural limits of the crew compartment
or crew survivability levels.

The separation of
the crew compartment deprived the crew of Orbiter-supplied oxygen, except
for a few seconds supply in the lines. Each crew member's helmet
was also connected to a personal egress air pack (PEAP) containing an emergency
supply of breathing air (not oxygen) for ground egress emergencies, whichmust be manually
activated to be available. Four PEAP's were recovered, and there
is evidence that three had been activated. The nonactivated PEAP was identified
as the Commander's, one of the others as the Pilot's, and the remaining
ones could not be associated with any crew member. The evidence indicates
that thePEAP's were not
activated due to water impact.

It is possible, but
not certain, that the crew lost consciousness due to an in-flight loss
of crew module pressure. Data to support this is:

--The accident happened
at 48,000 feet, and the crew cabin was at that altitude or higher for almost
a minute. At that altitude, without an oxygen supply, loss of cabin
pressure would have caused rapid loss of consciousness and it would not
have been regained before water impact.

--PEAP activation
could have been an instinctive response to unexpected loss of cabin pressure.

--If a leak developed
in the crew compartment as a result of structural damage during or after
breakup (even if the PEAP's had been activated), the breathing air available
would not have prevented rapid loss of consciousness.

--The crew seats
and restraint harnesses showed patterns of failure which demonstrates that
all the seats were in place and occupied at water impact with all harnesses
locked. This would likely be the case had rapid loss of consciousness
occurred, but it does not constitute proof.

Much of our effort
was expended attempting to determine whether a loss of cabin pressure occurred.
We examined the wreckage carefully, including the crew module attach points
to the fuselage, the crew seats, the pressure shell, the flight deck and
middeck floors, and feedthroughs for electrical and plumbingconnections.
The windows were examined and fragments of glass analyzed chemically and
microscopically. Some items of equipment stowed in lockers showed
damage that might have occurred due to decompression; we experimentally
decompressed similar items without conclusive results.

Impact damage to
the windows was so extreme that the presence or absence of in-flight breakage
could not be determined. The estimated breakup forces would not in
themselves have broken the windows. A broken window due to flying
debris remains a possibility; there was a piece of debris imbedded in the
framebetween two of the
forward windows. We could not positively identify the origin of the
debris or establish whether the event occurred in flight or at water impact.
The same statement is true of the other crew compartment structure.
Impact damage was so severe that no positive evidence for or against in-flightpressure loss could
be found.

Finally, the skilled
and dedicated efforts of the team from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology,
and their expert consultants, could not determine whether in-flight lack
of oxygen occurred, nor could they determine the cause of death. Joseph
P. Kerwin